Facebook opens an office in Colombo, Sri Lanka?

Photo courtesy of http://www.gossip9.com/

What you see on the picture is a tiny shop in capital of Sri Lanka. The shop owner has named his shop as “Facebook”. What made him to do that?

Sri Lanka is a country with an area of 65,610 km² and population of 21,283,913 (by 2011). As per International Telecommunication Union (ITU) reports, there were 1,776,200 Internet users as of Jun 2010, a penetration of 8.3%.

Usage of Facebook in Sri Lanka

Currently (April 2011) there are 894,240 Facebook users in Sri Lanka, that means;

- 4.2 % of the Sri Lankan population is on Facebook

- 50.3% of the Sri Lankan internet users are on Facebook

Though the impact is debatable, Facebook has become a term which is good enough to name an IT shop on the corner of the street.

-Sameera.

Dialog tradenet won WSA Mobile Gold Award in the m-Inclusion Category

Buying awards, stealing awards, organizers giving awards to themselves is common all around the world today. Some awards are given for some reason to product or service which has no use/users.

Anyway, Dialog tradenet won WSA Mobile Gold award under the m-Inclusion category. Is tradenet really inclusive service?

Yes, it is an inclusive trade information exchange which has converged multiple access technologies such as USSD, SMS, WAP, Voice (IVR/Call Centre) and Web (www.tradenet.lk), to reach all the socio-economic segments in Sri Lanka.

The World Summit Award Mobile is a global initiative within the framework of the United Nations World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), in collaboration with UNESCO, UNIDO and the United National Global Alliance for ICT and Development (ICT4D).

Commenting on Sri Lanka’s success at the WSA, Secretary to H. E. the President, and Chairman of the Commonwealth Telecommunication Organisation and of the UN-ESCAP Committee of ICT Experts for Asia & Pacific, Lalith Weeratunga, said;

“The World Summit Award for Dialog Tradenet is a testimony to the significant changes taking place in our country. The empowerment, Information & Communication Technologies (ICT) deliver to people, changes their lives and presents unprecedented opportunity for growth. This is why ICT and Access to Information are key pillars of the rapid development and expansion roadmap laid out by the government in the Mahinda Chinthana. As a government, we are thoroughly committed to making ICT an important part of our development story, and we will relentlessly support its growth and exploitation”.

-Sameera.

World’s First Wind Up Mobile Phone

This will not be exciting news for Sri Lanka as it is a country which has nearly 80% of the households with access to the main electricity grid. But this would be very good news for other countries with poor electricity penetration in Asia, Africa and Latin America.

Currently the above phone which is called “Ventus”, is in the prototype stage of development.

As per the TCL (http://tclproducts.co.uk/index.html), the company behind the development of this product, after cranking the phone for a minute, one can get four times that in talk time and it’s powered by a specially developed ultra thin dynamo.

Another interesting feature is that it also has solar panels incorporated into it so if you leave it in the sun it can be left on standby for extended periods of time.

Company has not revealed how near they are going to release it as a commercial product. But hope that would be a great news for people who walks miles to get their phones charged.

[Courtesy: http://www.geekwithlaptop.com/]

-Sameera.

How Corporate America Really Views Africa

The Conversation Behind Closed Doors

It is always good to know the attitude of U.S. investors on Asia and Africa, where most of the poor people live in the world.

Africa is the world’s second largest and second most populous continent after Asia, with a population nearing 1 billion. It accounts for 14% of the world’s population. More than 1000 languages are spoken across its 53 countries. In addition, Africa covers 20% of the world’s total land area and contains about 30% of its mineral reserves.

A qualitative survey was conducted by Baird’s CMC in partnership with U.S. Chamber of commerce with a group of 30 leading U.S. multinational corporations from which majority were among the U.S. Fortune 100 corporations. Following are some of the industries represented in the survey;

Agribusiness, Information and Communication Technology (ICT)Infrastructure, Media

The survey could reveal five main factors that influence the decision of U.S. corporations to invest in Africa;

Rule of law - rule of law does not prevail
Attraction - no sufficiently large middle class
Risk versus rewards - risk adjusted ROI
Supportive business framework - infrastructure ?
A welcoming environment - education and health of workforce

Going forward, how can Africa attract Foreign Direct Investments (FDI)? Can they follow Asia?

You may access the Executive Summary of the Complete Survey Report at http://www.usafricainvestment.com/summary.html

Courtesy: Baird’s CMC & U.S. Chamber of Commerce

Sameera.

Can Telecenters become Disaster Early Warning Centers?

Yes, it can be. Telecentre is a place rich with ICT

No, it is too much to expect from a Telecentre.

Most of the telecentres are located in rural areas; most of those areas are prone to disasters, natural or man-made. Telecentres located in those areas but still with ICT facilities telephone, internet, fax, etc. can receive a message from a central disaster early warning centre.

So if we have a simple mechanism to disseminate that information, may be using megaphones we can convert a Telecentre to Early Warning Centre in the village. Even after the disaster occurred, that Telecentre can continue a play a role of coordinating the relief work, impact assessment, finding missing people (http://www.sahana.lk/), etc.

How many of you have tried this? What went well? What went wrong?

Sameera
http://ict4d-in-srilanka.blogspot.com/

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Man Behind The Success

Information and Communication Technology is penetrating all the civil societies today. People have got benefited through it, so they have realized the value of it. This is the reality from the bottom to the top of the society, that is why we see new concepts like Information and Communication Technology for Development (ICT4D) even at the policy level.

This is not something came-up in a day; it a result of continues efforts put together by so many people who wanted to see the Sri Lankan ICT industry where we are today. One key character who put tireless efforts during last few decades and made a tremendous service to the ICT industry and to the whole nation is Vidya Jyothi Professor V.K. Samaranayake.

According to a recent survey, the IT workforce grew by nearly 10,000 in the two years from 2004 and the projected demand shows an increasing trend with a total of 7,672 IT vacancies expected in 2007 alone. Maestro V.K. Samaranayake had realized this potential well advance and took measures to cater the future demand by forming institutes like University of Colombo School of Computing (UCSC) and initiating programmes like Bachelor of Information Technology (BIT).

The Government of Sri Lanka has honoured Prof. Samaranayake for his contribution towards ICT by the award of “Vidya Prasadini” in 1997 and the national honour “Vidya Jothi” in 1998.

Sameera Wijerathna

ICT4D in Sri Lanka

Hi friends

Let's make this, another platform to discuss how we can best use the Information and Communication Technology for the Development of Sri Lanka. Specially, how we can use ICT as a catalyst in the process of development.

May be we can discuss the pros and cons of existing ICT initiatives, Technologies, Tools in Sri Lanka or even new ways of using it.

Sameera.